MCP's have been firstly used in image intensifier tubes for night/low light vision applications to amplify ambient light into a useful image. A typical intensifier device is a vacuum device, with a photocathode and a microchannel plate (“MCP”), and a phosphor screen with adaptation optics. Incoming photons strike the photocathode and converts photons to electrons, which are accelerated toward the MCP by an electric field. The MCP has many microchannels, each of which functions as an independent electron amplifier. The amplified electron image of the MCP excites a phosphor screen or a CCD or any other imaging device.
Detection and amplification of low-level image signals or single photon or particle detection is a critical function in a wide variety of applications:                High energy physics: particle detection and particle tracker systems.        Molecular biology: observation of low-level fluorescence and luminescence in living cells, radio luminescence imaging.        Astronomical: grazing-incidence telescopes for light and soft X-ray astronomy, concave grating spectrometers for exploration of planetary atmospheres, laser satellite ranging systems.        Nuclear medicine: X-ray imaging, Computer Tomography (CT), Positron emission Tomography (PET)        Commercial: night vision.        
The current process used in industry for manufacturing microchannel plates is primarily based on the technology of drawing glass fibers and fiber bundles that are sliced and etched. The individual plates are polished to an optical finish. The solid cores are removed by chemical etching in an etchant that does not attack the lead oxide glass walls, thus generating hollow channels through the plates. Standard MCP is based on the manufacturing of microchannels of about 5-10 μm diameter densely arranged in a plate of lead glass of about 0.5 mm. Microchannel in lead glass are not naturally resistive, and an additional thin film of semiconducting material must be deposited on the microchannel wall, in such a way to lead to the formation of a thin, slightly conducting layer beneath the electron-emissive surface of the channel walls. Electrodes, in the form of thin metal films, are deposited on both faces of the finished wafer. The process is complex and costly.
Current manufacturing technologies for MCP with materials other than glass also are known. One of the methods invented to make MCP's with alternate material is by using materials called green sheets. Green sheets are made by first mixing polymer binder and powdered ceramic/glass. This slurry is then coated in sheet form and dried to form green sheets. In this method, such green sheets were punctured with array of holes of the sizes to MCP tubes. Subsequently, the sheets were stacked on top of each other such that the holes punctured in each sheets align thus forming array of micro tubes, the structure needed for MCP. Subsequently, this whole structure is annealed at a high temperature to make it solid.
More recent MCP based on crystalline silicon profit from recent technology improvements.
In silicon MCP's, an array of holes is etched in silicon wafer using different techniques such as electrochemical etching, reactive ion etching and streaming electron cyclotron resonance etching. However, low resistivity of bulk crystalline requires an extra oxidation film and a deposition of a semiconducting layer. Therefore, this MCP structure in the silicon wafer should be then oxidized to form SiO2 for electrical insulation and it is further processed to provide a gain enhancing layer on channel walls and electrodes on both sides.
The above-described limitations of current MCP manufacturing technology must be overcome. By fusing, drawing, and etching it is impossible or prohibitively expensive to make channel diameters below 5 μm and maintain a large open area ratio. Previous generations of microchannel plates have.
There have been some alternatives to current glass MCP manufacturing technology based on GaAs and fused silica using micromachining techniques of dry etching. Etch methods used were magnetron reactive ion etching, chemically assisted ion beam etching (“CAIBE”), and electron cyclotron resonance etching (“ECR”). CAIBE gives high aspect ratio etching of GaAs, but at low etch rates. ECR provided higher etch rates of GaAs and better substrate temperature control.
Other structures of microchannel plates have been fabricated using Silicon micromachining techniques. High aspect ratio pores were constructed using reactive ion etching and streaming electron cyclotron resonance etching, and low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD). Typical microchannels have pitch of 8 microns and depth of 350 microns.
The drawbacks of current MCP are that:                a slow recharging time constant is associated with each microchannel after one secondary electron emission avalanche event, a dead time in the order of 10 ms, limiting gain and counting rate capability.        besides material issues, existing MCP do not have an easy readout for finely pixilated imaging device.        current MCP technologies do not provide the integration of the MCP device with the imaging readout system.        current etching methods limit miniaturization of pore diameters to 5 μm.        
The invention aims to avoid this disadvantage.